


Slide

by greenapricot



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-04-09
Updated: 2004-04-09
Packaged: 2018-05-01 08:16:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5198744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenapricot/pseuds/greenapricot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He is searching. Searching for something. The trouble is he doesn’t know what it is. Or where. Or how. Or why. Or the answers to any of the questions you ask yourself when you’ve misplaced something.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slide

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted in 2004.

He wakes to screaming. Screaming in a human voice but with animal ferocity. Screaming that seems to come from everywhere, and nowhere, and encompass all sound at once. Screaming that is the end, and the beginning and the middle. 

Screaming that is not coming from his own mouth. 

Screaming that seems to be in the very stone and hardly diminishes even when he pulls his arms over his head and tries to recede into himself. Screaming that goes on and on and on and on and on for so long that it fades into the background and is gone. 

Surely it must have stopped.

:::

When the walls crumble to dust around him he remains where he is for long minutes.

There is a part of him somewhere that thinks this odd. That says that walls don’t do things like that and for that matter rooms should be tall enough to stand in, and have doors. That from time to time there should be more to put in his mouth than his own fingers. That possibly sleep is supposed to be a good thing, not something that leaves him panting and wondering if he is dead. (Though possibly he is dead.) That there should be some distinction between sleeping and waking and that there maybe ought not be areas of his vision that fade to black at odd moments. 

His hand comes away from the floor covered in dust. 

There are. Stones. All over the floor. 

Sharp edges shred the fabric draped around his waist that, quite probably, had been a school uniform at one point. His hands and knees burn; his palms rubbed raw as they grate over grit, and skin tears, leaving streaks of red to mark where he has been.

:::

He awakens to complete silence. Utter stillness. As if the world has died around him. Something warm and thick is running, trailing, down his arm, hand.

Liquid.

He lifts his hand - too white against grey... sky? - and tilts it, watching as the liquid flows slowly down his middle finger and pools at the tip in a perfect crimson drop. 

Blood. 

Curious. There seems to be quite a lot of it streaked on the rubble that surrounds him, loud and red against the grey stone. But still, there is no sound.

:::

He is searching. Searching for something. The trouble is he doesn’t know what it is. Or where. Or how. Or why. Or the answers to any of the questions you ask yourself when you’ve misplaced something. When trying to place that time you walked by thinking of something else and put it down but with no recollection of doing it.

Only it’s not just where it is that he’s forgot but what. And at this point he’s been searching for so long that it’s just the searching that he remembers, that is always there, that is what he does. 

Had he once done something else?

There are flashes. Images, like ghosts, passing just out of reach. Sometimes they snag just a bit, almost stop; a leaf skittering across stone, and it turns for a moment, hesitates, before the wind catches it up again and it is gone.

:::

Figures appear over the rubble. Figures cloaked in black that stands out in stark contrast to grey stone, grey sky.

Figures that call a name and run to him, a name that has no meaning. 

Faces that go dark and concerned when he doesn’t answer. 

Hands reach down and pull him to his feet placing something warm and almost heavy about his shoulders.

The tall one’s hair is too much, too loud, redredred against grey sky, but in a different way than blood. There is something behind the blue eyes that he can’t bear too look at, something like pity, something like blame, as the eyes turn away. He knows he should feel something. But he doesn’t.

:::

There is a hand on his back, warm through heavy fabric, and he turns to a face that blends with the landscape; grey on grey on grey, hair and skin and cloak, but the eyes. The eyes are bright; deep amber like all the sunsets he has missed.

There is something in those eyes that he wants to hold on to but can’t quite grasp. Something like comfort; the vague memory of that same warm hand on his shoulder and the sweet taste of chocolate in the dark. 

And he finds himself leaning into the touch, and this, it seems, makes sense.


End file.
